25 Best Windows 8 Apps

As the number of Windows 8 users grows, so does the number of apps for the operating system — and the quality of those apps is improving, too. There are now more than 125,000 apps in the Windows Store, ranging from games and social networking apps to photo-editing tools and newsreaders. There’s even an app for finding apps (great for iOS and Android transplants). Here’s our list of the top 25 apps for Windows 8 devices, including touch-screen laptops, tablets and hybrid devices.

OpenTable

Everyone hates getting to a restaurant to find out there's no table available. Make sure that doesn't happen to you, by downloading the OpenTable app, which allows you to reserve a table, browse restaurants in your area and check out menus before you sit down to eat. The app supports more than 20,000 restaurants.

Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptop Mag and Tom's Guide, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.

Every time I pressed a picture for the apps I got a popup asking me to join a subscription list.

It was interesting to see and read you list, but there are other good sites on the internet with equally good articles without that annoying popup… I will most likely read on those sites instead of this site.

Perhaps another google search in the future will take me to this site and hopefully I will forgot about this and hopefully I can read the actual article without frustration, and by doing so I might be more interested in this site.

Are some of these region-locked for some bizarre reason? I’m in Australia and I can’t find quite a few of them in the Windows Store, including Slacker Radio and LivingSocial. Clicking on their links from apps.microsoft.com just redirects to the main Store page.

Is there an app that I can use on Windows 8 which is a calendar for firefighters who use the red (A), blue (B), green (C) shift schedule. This would be terrific. Most departments use the same shift calendar so it would be used nationwide.

It might be a really simple App, but the Remote Desktop Metro app is actually really cool. Since it acts pretty much exactly like the standard desktop, when working with multiple machines, just click the upper left of the screen to switch between the Desktop of your main machine, and the Desktop of your Remote Machine.

Question: I just purchased Windows 8.1 and I am trying to locate two items, Windows Word and Windows Spreadsheets. How do I find these or do I have to download or purchase these programs? Please Advise